W.O.K.E. Up!

After years in a coma, advertising executive, Richard, returns to his advertising agency: ‘Williams Oakley Kendall and Eden’, and is keen to pick up from where he left off. But to his horror, he finds Michael, a mere intern, virtually running the show, and if the agency’s current creative output is anything to go by, Richard considers he’s not running it at all well.

His long time creative partner, Kay arrives but he’s taken aback as to why she would reiterate the claims that Michael has been making; that advertising is no longer about selling, but all about attaching some kind of social purpose to a brand. The agency desperately needs to win some new business as the only remaining client they have is the Callisters Biscuits account, and fortunately there’s hope on the horizon in the form of a potential new account: the Schnelle Motor Company. 

Kay and Michael prepare for, what they think is, the final meeting with Schnelle only to learn that they are not as close to signing off as they thought. Anya, who is Schnelles’ ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ representative returns for the umpteenth time to check that all the caveats that Schnelle have stipulated regarding its green, diverse, cultural, and culinary agendas are being properly adhered to. Along, of course, with the gender-neutral toilets. 

ichard watches as Kay and Michael fall over themselves trying to comply with every zealous diktat coming from Anya and learns that there is yet another hurdle to overcome: that there must be a ‘diverse' person sitting in at the next meeting or they can forget the deal. Richard is astonished and appalled to hear Kay and Michael discussing how they are going to find someone of the ‘right’ colour to sit in on the next meeting with Schnelle. But then the on-trend Michael is appalled and perpetually offended by virtually everything that comes out of Richard’s behind-the-times mouth.

Gabrielle, is found working in the buidling's coffee shop and becomes the diverse person in question, but as Michael, Kay and Richard tie themselves up in knots debating the morality of her potential employment, she takes advantage of the situation. 

The Callisters new campaign gets called racist by the X/Twitter mob and the agency gets cancelled, causing them to lose their one and only remaining client. Generations collide. Richard derides Michael, Michael pities Richard, Kay has a much needed melt down, and it comes to light that Schnelle are not the paragon of virtue they have professed themselves to be. 

Attitudes, opinions, assumptions and standpoints are challenged. The misuse of power is exposed, along with the virtue-signalling, hypocrisy in the world of advertising. No one is ever the same again.